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CNN.com reports, not surprisingly, that dietary supplements have not been proven scientifically to provide health benefits. What was surprising to me was what a large number of these supplements some people take and how much money Americans spend on them each year. CNN.com states,

Every morning, Dr. Frank Pinto pops not one or two vitamins, not
just a handful, but more than two dozen dietary supplements, washing
each one down with a sip of water.

When afternoon rolls around,
he takes 20 more: all told, nearly 50 pills, every day. Pinto, a
dermatologist, and his wife, Rosemary, a family therapist, are chasing
life with a vengeance under the guidance of Dr. Ana Casas, an
Atlanta-based specialist in "age management."

Like millions of
Americans, the Pintos, who live in Tifton, Georgia, take supplements in
hopes of gaining energy, warding off disease and slowing down the aging
process. The federal government says Americans spend at least $5.8
billion a year on dietary supplements.

To look at the labels, you
would think that vitamins and supplements are powerful medicine. Yet
for all the money spent, and growing interest from mainstream
physicians, virtually no evidence exists that supplements can improve
your health.

Mmm, now why isn't this something that a consumer protection agency should be all over -- ooo -- thanks to Congress, these supplements are exempt from FDA coverage. As CNN notes,

Under the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health
Education Act, nutritional supplements do not have to be tested for
safety or effectiveness before going on the market. As long as the
manufacturer doesn't claim that a product treats or cures a specific
disease, it can advertise any health benefit whatsoever. The next time
you're in a health food store, just count the bottles that promise to
"strengthen your immune system."

Perhaps Congress should revisit this decision to not regulate the supplement industry.

Congress will vote again to approve federal funding for stem cell research this week according to Scientific American.com. The website reports,

Stem cells will be at the top of the
agenda for the U.S. Senate when it returns on Tuesday with
supporters of the research hoping they can change the
president's mind on the issue and opponents hoping to have a
say about their stand.

The Senate will consider two bills, one virtually identical
to a bill vetoed by President George W. Bush last year that
would have expanded and encouraged federal funding of human
embryonic stem cell research.

The other is a compromise measure worked out by Republicans
Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Norm Coleman of Minnesota.
It would encourage stem cell research on embryos that have
naturally lost the ability to develop into fetuses, such as
those that have died "naturally" during fertility treatments.

The compromise bill also would support the creation of a
bank of stem cells taken from amniotic fluid and placentas --
two recently discovered potential sources.

This bill replaces last year's alternative sponsored by
Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, which would ban human
embryonic stem cell research and encourage research using other
types of stem cells.

The House of Representatives passed a bill in January that
would expand federal funding of stem cell research, which is
now restricted by Bush to batches available as of August 2001.
But the bill does not have enough supporters to override a
second presidential veto. It is not clear how much support there is for either Senate
bill, although opponents of human embryonic stem cell research,
such as Brownback, have signaled they will vote for the
compromise bill. They also said they were looking forward to
making use of up to 20 hours of scheduled debate. . . .

In other news relating to stem cells, an article in Science Daily discusses recent findings by researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, that "female stem cells derived from muscle have a greater ability to
regenerate skeletal muscle tissue than male cells, according to a study," published in the April 9th issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.
Science Daily reports,

This
finding could have a major impact on the successful development of stem
cells as viable therapies for a variety of diseases and conditions,
according to the study's senior author, Johnny Huard, PhD, director of
the Stem Cell Research Center at Children's and the Henry J. Mankin
Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Orthopaedic
Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"Regardless
of the sex of the host, the implantation of female stem cells led to
significantly better skeletal muscle regeneration," said Dr. Huard,
also the deputy director of the McGowan Institute of Regenerative
Medicine. "Based on these results, future studies investigating
regenerative medicine should consider the sex of the stem cells to be
an important factor. Furthermore, investigations such as ours could
lead to a better understanding of sex-related differences in aging and
disease and could explain, at least partially, the high variability and
conflicting results reported in the literature on stem cell biology."

Dr.
Huard's team, and the study's first author, Bridget Deasy, PhD,
director of the Live Cell Imaging Lab at Children's Stem Cell Research
Center, made the discovery while working with a population of stem
cells they isolated in the lab while searching for a cure for Duchene
muscular dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a genetic disease estimated to affect
one in every 3,500 boys. Patients with DMD lack dystrophin, a protein
that gives muscle cells structure. Using an animal model of the
disease, his laboratory is using stem cells to deliver dystrophin to
muscles.